2013 Was the Worst 2004 Ever

Fall Out Boy reunions. New Found Glory tours. 'Anchorman' sequels. Here are the things that wouldn’t stay dead this year.

They say everything works in cycles. Sometimes this plays out for the best, like when low-waisted jeans eventually come back in style to show off women's glorious Gwen Stefani-like midriffs (...laaaaadies?). But on the flipside, it also means every awful trend you were glad to see die off will eventually come back around to annoy you. Here are a few things that resurfaced in 2013 that made it feel like it was 2004 all over again. The bad part of 2004, anyway.

Fall Out Boy Reunited

Maybe Pete Wentz needed cash to buy some super rare Star Wars action figures. Or maybe Patrick Stump was milked dry by the cost of hiring Clay Aiken’s image consultant to make him look less like a character from The Hobbit. But either way, America’s most obnoxious 33-year-olds-pretending-to-be-teenagers, Fall Out Boy, reunited this year to the excitement of former teens who used to hang out at the mall and who are now mid-level managers working there. Fall Out Boy even put out an album, Save Rock and Roll, which beat out their original title, Pretend You Can Stand Your Bandmates for Another Year So You Can Afford to Build an Extension On Your House.

Avril Lavigne Put Out an Album and Married the Dude from Nickelback

Avril Lavigne had the most 2004 year ever in 2013. First off, she continued to exist. So that’s pretty impressive. But then on top of that, she put out a new album in November and even double-downed on the mid-aughts nostalgia by including Marilyn Manson on her song, “Sk8er Boi 2: Even Moar Sk8r Boyz” or whatever. And to top the year off, she also married the dude from Nickelback. Not sure where those two met but it was probably either in a time machine or on the set of a Vh1 Where Are They Now? special. Apparenty, being married to the Sum 41 guy was not nostalgic enough.

Chris Carrabba Was In a New Band

You may not realize this if you eventually got over your highschool sweetheart dumping you and ya know...moved on with your life, but Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba is still making music. He’s currently fronting a Mumford and Sons rip-off band called Twin Forks who put out an EP this year. Imagine Swiss Army Romance but replace wussy emo songs about girls with wussy alt-country songs about girls. If Celtic trip hop suddenly became popular, you’d see this dude on MTV8 with a set of bagpipes, trying to freestyle rap battle people with rhymes about infidelity.

New Found Glory Toured with H2O and Alkaline Trio

New Found Glory must have sat down this year and asked themselves, “What is the most 2004 tour we can possibly do? Are Bright Eyes and the Walkmen available? No? Then get us Alkaline Trio and H2O and load up our tour bus with Entourage DVDs and the Garden State soundtrack!” And you know what? It worked. 30-year-old ex-pop-punk kids who used to update their Livejournals every five minutes got babysitters and lined up in hordes to see Jordan do that decade-lame “2 C U” thing on “Hit or Miss” in person.

Blink-182 Started Working on a New Album

It took Blink-182 long enough, but they finally realized that no one cares about their boring side projects. Tom Delonge seems to have wised up to the fact that he makes a lot less money pretending to be Bono in Angels and Airwaves than just rhyming “nutsack” with “buttcrack” over two chords on a new Blink album. The band made the very brave announcement that they would graciously accept millions of dollars from kids who shop at Billabong stores across the world by shitting out another dick pun abum next year.

Arrested Development Came Back to Disappoint Everyone

Arrested Development had a good run in the early 2000s. A great run, actually. One of the best runs a TV show can have. But since we as an internet-vocal people are incapable of letting go of anything ever, the Bluths got rebooted for a stretch of episodes this year, which left millions of Netflix subscribers pretending they were as groundbreaking as the originals. [Ron Howard voice]: They weren’t.

Arctic Monkeys Had Another “Hit” Song

Arctic Monkeys had one halfway decent song. That “you look good on the dancefloor” one. That was almost a decade ago. Yet here we are, in 2013, and people are still pretending to take them seriously, including NME, who named their new record their #1 album of the year, which suggests that they didn’t hear any other albums all year.

Franz Ferdinand Put Out A New Album Apparently

Much like Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand decided there were still a few dollars left to be made off of college kids with no discernible taste in music. They put out a new album this year, which you might not have heard about since you've probably heard “Take Me Out” in enough commercials over the last decade to kill your brain's ability to physically process another Franz Ferdinand song for the rest of your life.

The Pixies Farted Out Another Single

Back in 2004, the Pixies put out their first song since 1991’s Trompe Le Monde. Then Frank Black and Kim [insert last name] dicked around for another 9 years before half-assing a new 4-song EP called EP1. Hey, cool pace. At this rate, we should get a new full-length Pixies album by 2070.

The Postal Service Reunited

The Postal Service released Give Up, a pretty fun album that sold a ton of copies a decade ago. Well, 10 years and 500 songs about girls with bangs later, Ben Gibbard was finally ready to get the band back together, which must have been difficult since there was an entire one other member of the band. Way to strike while the iron’s hot, Ben! Ultimately, the Postal Service 2013 reunion was just a few big festival shows and a 10-year reissue of Give Up. Maybe after Ben finishes up his next 65 Death Cab For Cutie albums, he’ll be ready to put out the 20-year anniversary edition.

Anchorman Got a Sequel

Quoting Anchorman was a surefire way to make your friends laugh. After all, 60% of the time, it works every time. But after 10 fucking years of hearing frat douches horribly mangle the Dorothy Mantooth line or invite you to the pants party, it got old. Like, really fucking old. But now, here comes a sequel a decade later to ensure a fresh generation of keg-pumping morons will be rambling on about loving lamps and shitting squirrels for another decade.